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With the best of intentions and the worst of plans, Florida’s long-delayed 2011 crackdown on pill mills ignited the heroin crisis, not just in Florida, but across more than half the country, a Palm Beach Post investigation found.

“The oldest medical treatment for addiction to heroin and powerful prescription opioids, methadone curbs cravings without generating highs. It paves the way for users to lead normal lives. It is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines.”

Purdue Pharma and El Chapo had provided kindling: The pharma company’s unprecedented marketing campaign for its blockbuster OxyContin painkiller did not stop with pill sales. Purdue marketing helped ensure that for the first time in U.S. history, heavy doses of one of the most addictive substances known to man would be prescribed by family doctors for everything from sprained ankles to migraines...

On the fine, shell-dappled beaches of Sanibel Island, the putrid corpses of all manner of sea life are scraped into piles by a rag-tag crew with metal-tined rakes. Matilda Meritt, a cigarette between her lips, rhinestone sunglasses, and a shirt that reads “wake me when the boring is over,” is on the early shift, dropped off in one of two Greyhound buses every morning for a week...

A master plan filed in the village, and scheduled to come before officials next week, marks a milestone for a project years in the making and a topic of curiosity for thousands of daily commuters on Southern Boulevard. “It’s going to be the CityPlace of the western communities,” said Michael Tuttle, manager of Tuttle Land Investments. The reference to West Palm Beach’s signature...

A leaky roof at the North Palm Beach public safety building has spurred the growth of a stubborn and dangerous mold. Since Thursday, the building’s records division has been closed and its two full-time employees moved elsewhere in the building because of what Police Chief Rick Jenkins called an imminent health issue. RELATED: Families scramble as toxic mold forces them from Wellington homes...

President Bill Clinton was heralding the possibilities of the “information superhighway,” O.J. Simpson was readying his murder defense and Donald Trump was married to Marla Maples and preparing to unveil his new Mar-a-Lago Club the last time a Democrat won an election for governor in Florida. KNOW YOUR CANDIDATES: Complete guide to the Aug. 28 election Now five candidates are trying to...

The waterfront house at 2765 Lake Drive is the ninth most valuable in Riviera Beach, its worth estimated by the county at nearly $2.2 million. Yet, despite its lush lawn, dock and swimming pool on Singer Island alongside the Intracoastal Waterway, five bedrooms and four full baths, utility bills obtained by The Palm Beach Post indicate no one at the 5,900-square-foot property used any water the past...

If you were lucky enough to miss the fifth and final debate among the five Democrats running for Florida governor, fear not. I have a condensed recap of this hour-long event featuring Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, former Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine, Palm Beach businessman Jeff Greene, former North Florida Congresswoman Gwen Graham, and some guy named Chris King. The debate, held in Palm...

For generations, average Joe anglers cast their lines from Florida’s sandy shores hoping to land one of the ocean’s most ancient creatures, furtive shadows thrumming with power and intrigue. But the state is taking a closer look at the loosely regulated sport of beach-based shark fishing as concerns mount about hooked sharks being dragged onto the sand, their snouts lifted...

The Palm Beach County School Board is considering streamlining its school-naming policy to allow wealthy, living individuals to have schools named after them in exchange for a “significant contribution.” These “legacy naming rights” would replace a policy that gives the school’s advisory council (SAC) a say on the name change, sparing a “substantial benefactor&rdquo...

Boca Raton mayoral candidate Scott Singer filed a complaint with the Florida Election Commission against opponent Al Zucaro and his blog, BocaWatch, Singer told The Palm Beach Post. Singer, acting mayor of Boca Raton, claims Zucaro operates the blog as an unregistered political committee, a violation of state election law. On July 26, Singer filed the complaint, which has not been made public but...

When Vincent Gaines started serving his five-year prison sentence for burglary, the West Palm Beach resident weighed 190 pounds. He was also known to be bipolar and psychotic with borderline intellectual functioning. In fact, his prison intake information described him as stocky. When he died, the 5-foot-9 Gaines weighed 115 pounds and was found naked with what appeared to be feces caked to the bottoms...

The CAVE Society applauds Publix for its new signs aimed at keeping most dogs out of the supermarkets. We Citizens Against Virtually Everything have been annoyed by the gradual inclusion of canines into the shopping experience, especially those transported in baby strollers or infant harnesses. These dogs are almost never service animals, which are highly trained and disciplined dogs that perform...

Inmates called her Red, for the thick auburn hair her beloved older sister once painstakingly curled. Smart as a whip at 9, Donna Pickelsimer was troubled in her teens, struggling with alcohol in her 20s and, at 52 a convict, sentenced to 15 years behind bars. Under the care of Florida’s newly privatized prison health system, she didn’t last four. Handing off prison inmate medical care...

Inmates called her Red, for the thick auburn hair her beloved older sister once painstakingly curled. Smart as a whip at 9, Donna Pickelsimer was troubled in her teens, struggling with alcohol in her 20s and at 52, a convict, sentenced to 15 years behind bars. Under the care of Florida's newly privatized prison health system, she didn't last four. Handing off prison inmate medical...

A Palm Beach County circuit judge candidate on Tuesday admitted she had sex with a client she was representing in a 2013 divorce, a violation of Florida Bar rules. Royal Palm Beach family law attorney Marybel Reinoso Coleman, who has garnered support from the county’s legal elite in a three-person race to replace retiring Circuit Judge Peter Blanc, made the admission in response to two letters...

Irony alert: This summer’s algae bloom shut down the Stuart office of Florida Sportsman magazine, a publication that celebrates fishing in the state’s waters. “The algae started coming in late June, and then it just grew in the water,” said David Conway, the magazine’s managing editor. The magazine’s office is on one of the many canals off the St. Lucie River. The...

Bad news, folks. Your Florida government’s ingenious plan to keep young people from voting hit a snag last week. It came in a ruling from one of those activist federal judges doing a lot of yammering about “the Constitution” or whatever. Sheesh, and it was such a clever plan. As your state leaders know, young people frequently don’t vote for the right people, so it’s...

Five West Palm Beach parishioners have been excommunicated from a Pentecostal congregation their forefathers founded a century ago, for resisting their state bishop’s effort to control the local affiliate’s real estate. After the parishioners changed the church locks and posted an eviction notice on the door in June, Bishop Anthony Pelt Sr.’s appointed local pastor told the five...

President Donald Trump, who will appear with Republican gubernatorial hopeful Ron DeSantis at a Tuesday rally in Tampa, is having a major impact on Florida’s GOP primary for governor. Trump’s Palm Beach neighbor and fellow billionaire, Jeff Greene, is spending millions to try to make Trump a factor in the Democratic primary for governor as well. DeSantis, Graham lead primaries for Florida...

It’s trash talk of a different kind. Garbage — where the cans are kept, how long they can sit in the hot sun without developing an offensive smell and how much waste will pile up before being collected — is all the rage in the unincorporated neighborhoods of Palm Beach County. Residents in these communities are facing a change in trash pickup from twice...

For eight years Stephen Kajiura has flown a stretch of shoreline from Boca Raton to Jupiter during blacktip shark season, meticulously counting each shadow in the blue shallows of the Atlantic. Squeezed between the narrow continental shelf and swift Gulf Stream current, a unique shark bottleneck parallels Palm Beach County during the annual migration. Tens of thousands of blacktips swim a languid...

Palm Beach County public schools cut the pay for veteran teachers by thousands of dollars over the past decade, relegating the county’s most experienced educators to lower salaries than their predecessors even as the cost of living climbed. A typical 20-year teacher in Palm Beach County earns $3,000 less today than a typical 20-year teacher did in 2008, a Palm Beach Post analysis of school district...

Expensive dinners, a trip to a gun range, a paid vacation with a strip club outing and stock options. Those were the perks provided to a Palm Beach County doctor from a pharmaceutical company for prescribing the dangerous opioid fentanyl, a recently unsealed whistleblower lawsuit claims. The lawsuit against Insys Therapeutics says the Arizona-based company even hired a dental hygienist for the...

There’s a vacancy on the board of the Palm Beach Soil and Water Conservation District. I know. I know. Who would ever step down from such a plum post? I mean, it’s the go-to board for wet dirt in the county. We’re not talking about a piddling post on the Indian Trail Improvement District or one of the elected seats on the Journey’s End Community Development Board. When you...

The Miami-based company that recently lost its contract to supply mental health counselors to Palm Beach County schools after a Palm Beach Post investigation appears to also be under scrutiny from the state’s top legal authority as it investigates Medicaid fraud. Motivational Coaches of America has billed itself as a top provider of mental health counselors to schools across the state, boasting...

The unexpected closure of a popular martini bar has sent a charity scrambling to find a new venue for a fundraiser that was supposed to be Friday night. RELATED: New Orleans-style restaurant planned for Palm Beach Gardens Dirty Martini in Downtown at the Gardens temporarily closed Monday, operating partner Jeremiah J. Pitts said Wednesday night. PHOTOS: Avocado Grill in Palm Beach Gardens The temporary...

Boynton Beach High School’s principal has been removed abruptly from the school after becoming the subject of a school district investigation. Principal Guarn Sims, a veteran educator who was appointed to lead the school last summer, was removed and temporarily reassigned pending the outcome of the investigation, less than three weeks before classes resume Aug. 13. In his absence, the school...

The vice chair of a little-known environmental panel resigned Wednesday after she came under fire for cursing at a U.S. Army veteran, calling him a traitor and speaking ill of fallen veterans in a Facebook chat earlier this month. Patricia “Pat” Edmonson, who until Wednesday afternoon served on the Palm Beach Soil and Water Conservation District, and U.S. Army veteran...

BOCA RATON — The Palm Beach County School District is verifying the address of every student enrolled at Boca Raton High School to “weed out” those who aren’t zoned for the crowded school, Superintendent Donald Fennoy said. When school resumes in three weeks, Boca High expects about 760 more students than it was built to hold, according to school district data. With...

The Palm Beach County medical examiner is projecting a 38 percent drop in the number of opioid-related overdose deaths countywide this year, a trend that would represent the first decrease since the local epidemic exploded more than three years ago. While community leaders acknowledged the projections as a rare positive development in their fight to curb the epidemic, they warned against interpreting...

I think science fiction writer Robert Heinlein got it wrong. “An armed society is a polite society,” Heinlein said. It’s a line frequently echoed by gun-rights groups. But we got a good reminder how questionable that assertion is after another “stand your ground” shooting in Florida that has become national news. Michael Drejka is the 47-year-old Florida man you may have...

Florida’s economy is inching ever-so-close to the $1 trillion mark. The Sunshine State churned out goods and services at an annual pace of $996.3 billion during the first quarter of 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis said Tuesday. Florida accounted for fully 5 percent of U.S. economic activity, the federal agency said. That sounds impressive -- until you consider that Florida has...

Going to the beach has never been so political as it is this year in Florida. That’s because the Florida Legislature took a swipe at the longstanding doctrine of “customary use” for beachfront property. The public has always had access rights to the high-water mark on Florida’s shorelines, which is considered state-owned property. But the dry sand beyond that high-water mark...

The Palm Beach beachfront house belonging to President Donald Trump’s two eldest sons is up for rent — for $100,000 a month, according to the local multiple listing service. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump two months ago paid their aunt, federal appeals Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, $18.25 million for her eight-bedroom house at 1125 S. Ocean Blvd. The deed was recorded...

Florida’s chief NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer is standing her ground in a whole new way. This month, the 79-year-old grandmother and the guiding hand of permissive gun legislation in Florida for decades, filed a 129-page federal lawsuit that is mostly a compilation of the bitter, profane and sometimes threatening emails she received after the February massacre of 17 people at Marjory...

Thriving ranch land in the belly of the Indian Prairie Basin will soon be a pool of nutrient-bombed water as Florida looks at temporary fixes for the algae woes of Lake Okeechobee and the northern estuaries. The Brighton Valley Project, which was approved this month by the South Florida Water Management District, will take water thick with algae-loving fertilizer and agriculture runoff, clean it,...

The four men seeking the Democratic nomination for Florida governor wore dark suits to a Wednesday night debate in Fort Myers. READ MORE: Rare Democratic campaign photo op from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Gwen Graham wore a pink jacket. “You may notice I look a little different than my other friends up here on stage,” Graham said in her opening statement. “I’m a mom, a...

Stephen Bass was a natural teacher. When he first met Valerie, his wife of nearly 50 years, they were both students at the University of Dayton and she needed help with a science lab. Stephen picked up a piece of chalk and immediately began writing on the blackboard. Bass, 74, of Lake Worth, died of cancer on July 4, one day before his 50th wedding anniversary. Bass had dedicated his life to...

I know the news has been crazy lately, and the last thing you need right now is one more bizarre news story, but that’s why I’m here. It turns out Florida’s two U.S. senators, Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson, have put aside their political differences to co-sponsor a bill that would allow older Canadians to vacation in Florida for eight months a year, instead of six. I was hoping this...

A drift of rouge-tinted Saharan air has filtered into South Florida, reducing rain chances into the weekend and turning up the heat. Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Miami are forecasting a high temperature of 93 degrees today in West Palm Beach — 3 degrees above what’s normal for this time of year. Wednesday’s high reached a blistering 92 with a “feels...

The Palm Beach Post’s Pat Beall will appear at 7:30 p.m. Friday on “Your South Florida,” a PBS show on WPBT Channel 2. The show, hosted by Pam Giganti, will focus on the state’s new opioid prescription law. Beall’s three-part series, “How Florida ignited the heroin epidemic,” traces the origins of today’s heroin epidemic to the...

In December 2015, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office embarked on a $1 million project to test 1,500 rape evidence kits that had been sitting on its shelves for as long as 40 years. The initiative came on the heels of both state and nationwide efforts to test DNA in years-old rape cases. Similar efforts in other cities have led to dozens and even hundreds of arrests, giving victims long...

Eagle Arts Academy’s executive director became the target of a theft investigation Monday after authorities say he took video cameras belonging to a church that rents space on the campus, the latest flareup at the charter school as its future becomes increasingly uncertain. After church leaders reported at least one camera stolen Monday, school director Gregory Blount admitted to taking...

More good news from the Trump-Putin summit. Remember the video simulation that Russia unveiled four months ago? It showed what purported to be a new long-range Sarmat cruise missile that Russian president Vladimir Putin called “invincible.” The video simulation showed a shower of these nuclear missiles raining down on South Florida. At least that’s what we thought it showed...

Apparently, Russian President Vladimir Putin needs a lesson in U.S. geography. In an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Monday, Putin denied that Florida was depicted in a propaganda video released last year showing Russian super missiles targeting Florida. Florida, arguably the country’s most identifiable state, is clearly depicted on the map, with Russian intercontinental...

It was shocking to be reminded of the word “moolie” again. It has been probably 40 years since I heard that well-worn racial slur being spoken. If you grew up in an Italian-American community in Long Island, like I did, you heard it a lot. Moolie is a slang version of “mulignan”, which is itself a permutation of the Italian word, “melanzane”, the word for eggplant...

South Florida condominium disputes are rarely about one thing. It might look like there’s a fight over some specific issue, but dig deeper, and a rich history of conflict awaits. That’s the case at Abbey Village in suburban Delray Beach, where for five years, resident Bruce Petricca, 60, has been fighting to allow his 86-year-old mother to have a plastic water bottle on the edge of...

The Homelessness Task Force commissioned by West Palm Beach Mayor Jeri Muoio in April has come back with several recommendations on how to improve the city’s response to the plight and its impact on the homeless and on downtown businesses, residents and visitors. Among the recommendations: Hire a psychiatrist to hit the streets, counsel homeless who might have mental problems and administer...

Florida, the reputed epicenter of the opioid crisis, served as fertile ground for a pharmaceutical company accused of bribing doctors to prescribe a powerful fentanyl spray. The Sunshine State topped the nation in 2014 and 2015 for patients and claims to Medicare for the medicine manufactured and marketed by Arizona-based Insys Therapeutics, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid...

So why do physicians fall for pharmaceutical companies’ enticements? Why do they put all they worked for on the line, after all their schooling, the endless hours of residency, the difficulty of establishing themselves in their chosen specialty? It’s pretty simple, says a medical marketing expert: sales reps exploit doctors’ weaknesses with flattery and friendship. Drug company representatives...

A Palm Beach County physician — one of the nation’s top prescribers of a highly addictive fentanyl spray — believes he is one of 10 unidentified doctors described in a federal criminal indictment against executives of a pharmaceutical company prosecutors say bribed doctors to prescribe the drug. The indictment lists the 10 as “co-conspirator practitioners,” but Dr...

Alec Burlakoff once worked as a guidance counselor and basketball coach at a private Boca Raton prep school, but then he jumped into the cutthroat world of pharmaceuticals. It would never be the same. As national sales chief for Insys Therapeutics, he helped direct the hiring of a former exotic dancer from West Palm Beach, models and even a reality TV star who posed for Playboy to peddle one...

An Iraq War veteran. A New Jersey woman planning her wedding. A grandmother from Jacksonville. A firefighter’s wife in South Carolina. All were prescribed a powerful spray fentanyl painkiller called Subsys, approved by the Food and Drug Administration only for breakthrough cancer pain. None had cancer. But many of their doctors received hundreds of thousands from the manufacturer of the...

Alec Burlakoff told his sales staff at Insys Therapeutics that “The Wolf of Wall Street” was the “best sales training video in history.” Now, the maverick salesman from Boca Raton faces federal criminal charges that he played fast and loose marketing a fentanyl spray. The movie, about machismo capitalism run amok in the pump-and-dump era of the 1980s and 1990s, also reflects...

PORT ST. LUCIE — Tucked among palm trees, flowers and manicured hedges, the south security gate at PGA Village is supposed to serve as a welcome mat to a development known for its upscale homes, three golf courses and streets with names like Perfect Drive and Steeplechase Lane. But for some residents and visitors, it’s a gateway to something far less idyllic. It’s a daily reminder...

A Palm Beach County commissioner and a state House member clinched their seats last year by stepping into voters’ homes and helping them fill out their mail-in ballots, a Palm Beach Post investigation has found. Commissioner Mack Bernard and Rep. Al Jacquet, both Democrats running in the August primary, took advantage of gaping holes in Florida’s vote-by-mail laws to pressure and cajole...